Sunrise, Sunset

I take the kids to the beach every Sunday before dusk.

We’re all working with the tools we’ve got. And I’ve got an ocean.

More and more I find myself needing to be re-rooted in the physical world.

I even switched back to print newspaper delivery. I find it’s easier to digest world events when I’m holding the thing in my hands.

And my feet, no matter what has happened the proceeding week, or what I imagine lies in the one ahead, carry my body strongest when they’re anchored in the wet sand, the water rising and retreating over them.

We re-enter the car barefoot - me and the kids - the bottom of our pants soaked.

Even on the days that are deemed cold in California we do this. When the sky is truly a hazy shade of winter.

When strangers walk past us in parkas and boots and ask “Aren’t your feet numb?”

And I answer “We moved here from New York!”

When there’s no one else making imprints on the wet sand it remains smooth, with a thin sheen that acts as a mirror. The sun seems to be both rising and setting at the exact same time.

Which it is, of course — Always it is doing this in different places.

But this week it feels like it’s happening at once - in the same space and moment - the sun is setting and it is rising in our country. And I’m hopeful.

I’m hopeful, but I’m not crazy!

In November of 2016 I joined an online community with the ambitious charge of bridging the gap in our divided nation. The group disbanded by December of the same year.

I wish we had stuck with it longer, because it’s going to be a much heavier lift now.

Let’s face it, it’s going to be a sandcastle at high tide.

The one that my children insist on building and rebuilding — over and over.

And for them, I do it. Again and again.

Wishing you all rootedness and love in the days and weeks ahead.

Prayer + Action: Glide

winter

We made it. Through several seasons of this. Through the longest night of the year.

And now, with the start of winter, the light - in the smallest of increments - creeps back in.

(And if those increments creep too slowly for you - as they do for me - then you can plug in a Happy Lamp as I have.)

We’re back to a stay-at-home order in San Francisco, but this time I don’t hear the Governor listing off all of the things I can’t do; I hear him suggesting what I know I absolutely need to do right now: Nothing — and I’m all ears.

On weekend afternoons, as the hours grow towards dusk, it’s not uncommon for me to call out EFF!, which stands for Enforced Family Fun! in the Ain home.

When Dan and the kids hear that cry, they know to lace up their sneakers for a mandatory stroll around the neighborhood, or a walk through Golden Gate Park, or a ride to Ocean Beach.

I’m prone to pangs of guilt if I feel I’ve let even one weekend day pass without doing something.

This winter break coincides with an ordinance to stay at home (Okay, I’ll still be strolling around my block in face-masks and taking jaunts to the ocean, but I might - if only for these next two weeks - make it optional for the other members of my household).

I feel a marvelous embrace of this stillness, in contrast to how busy and scheduled past “breaks” have been.

It’s winter. And my body, and also my mind and also my spirit need rest. I feel this so true and so deeply in the quiet that is this holiday season.

I know we’ll get back to travel and parties and dark movie theaters with tubs of warm popcorn.

But, for now, I am taking consolation in this mandatory pause.

Wishing you all warmth and rest over these last days of December 2020.

Prayer + Action Long Live Love Foundation

Rededication

For about six weeks, I’d been driving around with a large pumpkin in my trunk.

The pumpkin was something my kids eyed in the check-out line, and then forgot about in the time it took to transport it home from the market.

Every time I approached a red light, or reached a close-stop the pumpkin rolled forward — thudding against the back of the kids’ seats, and I’d say

“Aw, man, that pumpkin! I’ve got to get it out of the car.” 

But by the time we approached home, driving up our street at an incline, the pumpkin rolled the other way — quietly —  out of ear shot.

And I'd forget about it. 

The same exact thing happened the next day. 

And the next.

“The pumpkin!”

Then forgetting about the pumpkin.

For about forty-five days.

Until one day, last week, when I heard my six-year-old calling to me from the garage. He’d climbed into the hatchback trunk from inside the car and needed to be let out.

When I opened it, there he was sitting next to the pumpkin, in December. 

I scooped them both out.

This is a true story and it is also a parable.

A parable about Hanukkah (of course!), which means rededication.

What is rededication? And how do we know what to rededicate ourselves towards — when sometimes we haven’t even realized we’ve lost track of it?

Well, let’s make the pumpkin a poetry manuscript, or a carpentry project or a business venture and the car ride is two years, or twelve years or twenty years.

It’s something that you know you need to get back to, that crashes against your spirit with the seriousness of bowling ball several times a day, only to be muted down by the repetition of to-do-lists, and matters both urgent and mundane, and forgotten about by the end of each day.

Sometimes we simply can’t remember the thing we want to return to until it’s right in front of our eyes.

And when it appears it’s more than a consolation, it’s a miracle.

Wishing you light and warmth wherever you may find it, and that something you love may once again become illuminated.

Happy Hanukkah! 

Prayer + Action: Holiday Giving Guide